Event of the week
Gracie Abrams
Monday, March 10th, 3Arena, Dublin, 6.30pm, €54.90, ticketmaster.ie
It didn’t take long for Gracie Abrams to rise to the top. The US singer-songwriter released her debut album, Good Riddance, in 2023, after four years of artistic development with Interscope Records. Immediate recognition followed, with a Grammy nomination for best new artist and a support slot on Taylor Swift’s Eras tour. She already had strong entertainment industry links: her father is the Hollywood film-maker JJ Abrams, who runs his production company, Bad Robot, with the singer’s mother, Katie McGrath, an Irish-American former political aide to the late US senator Ted Kennedy. She now has billions of streams on Spotify and other platforms, plus a string of No 1 hits around the world, most recently with That’s So True. If you haven’t heard them, imagine an appealing blend of Phoebe Bridgers, Olivia Rodrigo and Swift.
Gigs
Irish Women in Harmony
Saturday, March 8th, NCH, Dublin, 8pm, €45/€37.50/€29.50, nch.ie
This collective of Irish female artists was founded almost five years ago, during the pandemic. Here they are celebrating International Women’s Day in fine style, in their live debut. The ensemble line-up hinges on the availability of performers, but expect classy cover versions culled from the Irish pop and rock songbook, from Aslan to U2 and from The Cranberries to Sinéad O’Connor. Singers confirmed include Clannad’s Moya Brennan, RuthAnne, Erica Cody, Stephanie Rainey, Soulé, Una Healy and Tolu Makay.
Jazz at Lincoln Centre Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis
Tuesday, March 11th, NCH, Dublin, 8pm, €95/€85/€70 (sold out), nch.ie
The combination of Jazz at Lincoln Centre Orchestra, whose music underlines the importance of jazz and its history, and Wynton Marsalis, one of the world’s best trumpet players, and the only musician to have won a Grammy in the jazz and classical categories in the same year, is manna from heaven for fans. As the orchestra’s music director as well as its managing and artistic director, Marsalis is as much an advocator as a performer, so expect to be equally enlightened and invigorated.
Teddy Swims
Wednesday, March 12th, and Thursday, March 13th, 3Arena, Dublin, 6.30pm, €71.90/€51.90 (sold out), ticketmaster.ie
How a one-time musical-theatre admirer with an unruly beard and a heavily inked face went from viral sensation (during the pandemic, Teddy Swims’s YouTube channel became a portal that allowed “grown men to cry when no one is watching”) to real-life superstar is a story worth telling. Which is exactly what Swims has done on his two albums, I’ve Tried Everything But Therapy Part 1 (2023) and Part 2 (2025), with a range of song styles that benefit from his powerful vocals.
Sally Rooney: ‘I enjoy writing about men ... the dangerous charisma of the oppressor class’
Alzheimer’s: ‘I’ve lost my friend and my companion,’ says Úna Crawford O’Brien of fellow Fair City actor Bryan Murray
Ryan Adams at Vicar Street: A gig that nobody will forget anytime soon, but perhaps not for all the right reasons
Meghan Markle’s new podcast: An ego-fluffing conversation underlining the culture gap between Ireland and the US
Martin Hayes and the National Symphony Orchestra
Friday, March 14th, Saturday, March 15th, and Tuesday, March 18th, NCH, Dublin, 7.30pm, €49/€42.50 (sold out), nch.ie
A perfect fit for the weekend that’s in it: Martin Hayes, one of Irish traditional music’s most important and adventurous musicians, collaborates for the first time with the National Symphony Orchestra. The concerts present new orchestral arrangements of Peggy’s Dream, the 2023 album that he recorded with The Common Ground Ensemble – the jazz pianist Cormac McCarthy, the cellist Kate Ellis, the guitarist Kyle Sanna and the bouzouki, harmonium and concertina player Brian Donnellan, all of whom will accompany Hayes on stage. This collaboration with the NSO, says Hayes, is where “the uncompromised melodies of traditional music are elevated and transformed by their immersion in the rich, beautiful harmonic layering that only a great symphony orchestra can offer”. Gavin Maloney conducts.
Visual art
Art as Agency
Until February 2028, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Royal Hospital, Dublin, free, imma.ie
Imma’s Art as Agency is a three-year landmark display of the national collection featuring work from more than 100 artists across the past 60 years. International artists represented include Marcel Duchamp, Derek Jarman, Lucian Freud, Shirazeh Houshiary and Giorgio de Chirico. Irish artists featured include Brian Maguire, Alice Maher, Willie Doherty and Aideen Barry.
Dance
Night Dances
Saturday, March 8th, Black Box Theatre, Galway, 8pm, €22/€18, tht.ie; Wednesday, March 12th, Glór, Ennis, Co Clare, 8pm, €22/€20, glor.ie; Friday, March 14th, Lime Tree Theatre, Limerick, 8pm, €22/€20, limetreebelltable.ie
With a tagline of “May the salt of our sweat unite us”, Night Dances isn’t a casual stroll in the park. Rather, it’s four ferocious dance pieces created by the Irish choreographer Emma Martin and performed to live music by Gilla Band’s Daniel Fox, Meltybrains’ Brian Dillon and Mhaol’s Jamie Hyland. Take advice from Eminem: lose yourself. Also at Siamsa Tíre, Tralee, Co Kerry (Wednesday, March 19th), An Grianán, Letterkenny, Co Donegal (Monday, March 24th) and Pavilion Theatre, Dún Laoghaire, Co Dublin (Thursday, March 27th until Saturday, March 29th).
Songs and stories
Abhair
Friday-Sunday, March 14th,-16th, Concert Hall, TU Dublin Grangegorman Campus, various times and prices, stpatricksfestival.ie
Abhair, part of St Patrick’s Festival, is a series of Irish oral-tradition events programmed by the singer Macdara Yeates. Across the weekend there will be music (Doireann Ní Ghlacáin, Tommy Sands, Róis, The Fingal Mummers, Phelim Drew, Sarah Ghriallais and Yeates), a public interview (Bernadette Devlin McAliskey talking with the historian Donal Fallon), live podcasts (Journey Back to Monto, with the inner city-folklorist Terry Fagan) and poetry (Paula Meehan).
Still running
Drogheda Comedy Festival
Until Sunday, March 9th, Drogheda, Co Louth, various venues, times and prices, droghedacomedyfestival.ie
Last year’s inaugural event was so successful that handfuls of comedians are now set to flock to Drogheda for more of the same. Except for Reginald D Hunter and Troy Hawke, it’s an Irish line-up, with well-known names such as Kyla Cobbler, Killian Sundermann, Gearóid Farrelly, Justine Stafford, Barry Murphy and Colm O’Regan.
Book it this week
Tina: The Tina Turner Musical, Bord Gáis Energy Centre, Dublin, May 27th-June 14th, ticketmaster.ie
Camila Cabello, 3Arena, Dublin, July 9th, ticketmaster.ie
Natasha Bedingfield, Iveagh Gardens, Dublin, July 18th, ticketmaster.ie
Vantastival, Beaulieu House, Drogheda, Co Louth, September 19th-21st, vantastival.com
